The Invisible Mile

‘Gorgeous.... Coventry’s brooding narrative, in varying parts philosophical action-adventure, travelogue, family drama, war chronicle and psychological puzzler, is suffused with the ever-querying perspective of its haunted central character.’ The New York Times (USA)

‘Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent. I loved The Invisible Mile because it felt how writing feels, and it shows us something great and long-past without a trace of nostalgia. And there was a killer thought on humanity or endurance about every thirty seconds.’ Markus Zusak (Author of The Book Thief)

‘Coventry’s masterful The Invisible Mile… looks closely and intensely at what huge human events do to the mind. It comes away with a reeling beauty, focused as poetry with the high scale of narrative prose.’ The Brooklyn Rail (US)

‘This is not a book about cycling. It’s actually a novel about World War I, which is still raging in everyone’s minds and has left traces throughout the countryside. […] At the same time, this book is the best cycling novel in years. A remarkable feat, considering it’s a debut. [...] A gorgeous, grim book, full of surrealistic images, one that you shouldn’t try to read in a hurry. Coventry imposes his pace on the reader, forces you into his rhythm, as if he had an entire oeuvre under his belt, and not just this first novel.’ Trouw (Netherlands)

'Pick of the Week. David Coventry's poetic odyssey in the Tour de France. Relates ... with symbolic force and poetic finesse.' Sydney Morning Herald

‘A wonderfully colourful and attentive novel that subtly combines the tangible pains of the race with the echoes of war. It isn’t myth-making or playing true events like puppets. Coventry commendably creates his own legend and pays homage to our ancestral competitors in doing so . . . Bursts of brilliance . . .’ Sunday Express

‘If David Coventry’s vivid début were only about the sport of cycling, it would be one of the most gruelling novels about sport ever written in New Zealand. But it’s quite a bit more than this . . . A truly extraordinary first novel.’ The New Zealand Listener

‘A gorgeous novel to read slowly. His style is lyrical, almost poetic. […] Above all, Coventry’s style is what makes this novel so special. […] This is a novel that will stay with you for a long, long time.’ Het Parool (Netherlands)

"David Coventry has successfully negotiated many of the potential pitfalls [of the traditional cycling novel], offering the reader a novel that easily transcends its denoted subject matter with a beauty of narrative, an underlying, yet seemingly hidden, complexity and a narrative that is as compelling as it is deep.... The Invisible Mile is a resounding triumph." The Washingmachinepost (UK)

'...absorbing, and on many levels. It’s a book about violence, youth, mythology, history, guilt and love - all set to the agonising rhythm of an inhuman bike race. Some achievement! Fictionalised accounts of sporting events don’t always work, but this has the same feeling of total immersion as I remember feeling when I read David Peace’s The Damned United.' Ned Boulting, ITV Journalist and author of How I won the Yellow Jumper

'... it's such an accomplished and beautifully refined novel. It almost makes other writers look like they're just mucking around.' Kiran Dass, The New Zealand Herald

‘The Invisible Mile is a dream to read, in all senses of the word. It’s a trance-like account of the 1928 Tour de France . . . The writing is fierce, a bravura mix of narcissism, masochism and lyricism grounded in the honesty of the unnamed rider’s journey into his self and the dawning realisation that the race has become a grand metaphor for the trauma of World War I.’ John Sinclair, Metro

'In The Invisible Mile, Coventry succeeds in creating a complex, nuanced novel which fundamentally questions our relationship with the histories which shape us, and the ways in which we tell the stories of who we are. At the same time, it is in many ways a classic sporting yarn about grit and determination in the face of a physical and mental test of endurance. A writer in his mid-forties, Coventry seems to have arrived fully-formed in our literary landscape with this fascinating debut.' Olivia Macassey, Takahē magazine

“Coventry invites you back to the 1928 Tour de France, to the horror of the First World War, to the hallucinogen mind of a rider. And you go with him, whether you like it or not, because he forces you. Sport and literature are not natural allies, but are here loved ones in the hands of David Coventry.” Bert Wagendorp, bestselling author of Ventoux.

‘The stream of consciousness style of writing is almost hypnotic as it compels you to share in the narrator’s ongoing struggle and to witness the slow unveiling of his past life. I’m not bold enough to describe it as unique, lest some more widely read critic names some obscure forerunner. I will instead recommend it as a brilliant tour de force of writing talent and style that richly rewards the reader. I leave it to you to decide whether or not this debut effort immediately places David Coventry among the elite of New Zealand authors.’ Brian Clearkin, Landfall

'....this ambitious début achieved more for me than most of the books I read in 2016." Feargal McKay, Podium Cafe (UK)